


Sleep(less)

by Rose Argent (roseargent)



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Campfires, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 12:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4787747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseargent/pseuds/Rose%20Argent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night in the desert when no one could sleep and said nothing, and one night when they said much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep(less)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [straightforwardly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/gifts).



> As the rating and tags suggest, I chose to fill your "campfire fic" request. 
> 
> There's a whole lot of baggage between Cecil and Rydia that Edward is not privy to at first, and in fact he hares off with them without really knowing much of anything about them, so I wondered how that conversation would have gone once they finally had it. I also tried to touch on a few of the themes that you mentioned being interested in, and I hope the end result is something you enjoy!

Rydia knew that Cecil had to be chafing at every delay, and yet he was the one who most often called for a rest or for making an early night of it. She knew, also, that he did it mostly for her sake, and she still wasn't entirely sure whether she was glad for his care or resentful that she couldn't keep up. Probably a little of both. 

And now she found she couldn't sleep, in any case, with her head so full of what had happened that day. She'd seen Damcyan destroyed before her very eyes, just like her own village, and been forced to accept that the most painful and important loss in her life was only a small part of some greater evil. She wanted her simple anger and grief back, even if they had been all-consuming and terrible, because this heavy dread churning in her gut was so much worse. Awful things were happening everywhere and she'd fallen into the middle of it, into sharing the responsibility to stop it. 

Giving up on sleep for the time being, Rydia opened her eyes; the small fire was blindingly bright for a moment, but as her eyes adjusted she discovered she was not the only one awake. Someone sat on the other side of the fire, and at first she thought it was the bard-prince they'd so recently added to their party. But as the sound she'd been hearing without really hearing finally registered, she realised that the pale-haired figure was scouring pieces of dark armour with sand. She'd known Cecil to be fair of face, from the times he'd lifted his helmet's face plate, but somehow it was still startling to see him without his armour, pale and shining in the firelight, and so much more slight than she had thought. He'd been a large, looming shadow in her mind's eye, the image of their first meeting being the one that stayed with her all this time, but freed of his metal shell, why, he was only an ordinary-sized sort of man!

And he was still so sad. 

When Cecil lifted his head, pausing in his work to look up at the sky, suddenly Rydia began to feel that she was watching something very private, that Cecil without his armour was a Cecil she was never meant to see. So she closed her eyes again and pretended to sleep until her tiredness overcame her worry, and then she wasn't pretending at all anymore. 

+++++

Edward had been so eager to feel useful, to help Cecil succeed where he had failed, that he had managed not to think about much of anything at all for most of the day. But now, lying by the fire with near-strangers at his back, he had little to do _but_ think. He could hear the soft metallic sounds of Cecil cleaning his armour, but he didn't turn to look; he could imagine all on his own what it was that a dark knight might need to clean off his armour, after a day of hacking away at the monsters that barred their path. Even fighting from the back row terrified Edward, and he was more than a little in awe of the man who charged in at close range, again and again, without flinching. 

Awed, yes, and a little afraid, too. What did he really know about Cecil, except that he needed a Sand Pearl to save his lady love? Was that enough to build trust with a man who was, after all, a dark knight who had been in service to the kingdom that destroyed Damcyan? But he was also a dark knight who travelled with a child--even if that child was a summoner--and matched his pace to hers, when surely he must want nothing more than to hurry and save his love. A very strange sort of dark knight, indeed, and there were stories within stories there that Edward desperately wanted to know. How had such a man come to serve Baron as a dark knight? How had he come to travel alone with a child of Mist? Travel by hovercraft was loud as a matter of course, and had offered little opportunity for talk, but he could turn now, and speak, ask his questions...

Swallowing his concerns and his curiosity, Edward remained silent. Tomorrow, he would find the courage to ask. Perhaps.

+++++

Cecil knew he needed sleep more than his armour needed cleaning, knew that he could have the dents hammered out and any trace of rust buffed away when they returned to Kaipo, but he would sooner cut off his own foot than continue walking around caked in the blood of monsters in front of Rydia. She was a strong girl, tremendously so, and by no means easily frightened, but still he felt that every bloodstain could only serve as a reminder of what he'd done to her mother. Even if it was so only in his own mind, even if she never noticed the difference, he would do this thing for her.

Of course, to clean his armour properly he had to remove it, and when exactly had he started to feel so naked without it? When was the last time he'd woken without some odd bruise from sleeping in plate armour? Even that last night in Baron, he'd simply gone to sleep without removing it. So, though his hands trembled ever so slightly, and he told himself it was only exhaustion, he removed his armour piece by piece, until it sat in a shadowed pile beside him. Piece by piece, he scoured it clean with sand, scraping away the dried blood and spittle left by a dozen dead beasts.

He was well past tired by the time he finished, slightly dizzy and a little sick with it, but he felt a little lighter, somehow. Looking up at the stars and the immense sweep of the sky, his vision unrestricted by his helmet, Cecil felt as though he could breathe better than he had in a very long time. He almost hesitated to put the armour back on, but they were camped outside and nothing stopped the monsters from coming near except the light of the fire. Better to be ready to defend the camp at a moment's notice. But still, his armour felt oddly cold as he strapped it back on, despite the heat of the campfire. 

If he slept at all after that, he hardly noticed. 

+++++

It had taken them all day to make their way through the Antlion's lair, and again Rydia knew that it was largely because of her. Though bridges and steps cut into the rock and supplies laid by for travellers all spoke of effort made to ease the passage of men through the cave, it was also very clear that none of these preparations had been made with children in mind. Every step was just slightly too tall so that she had to really stretch her legs to make it up or down, the gaps between boards on the bridges were all a little too wide so that she had to be very careful where she put her feet... she was very aware, as she'd never been before, that she was, every minute of this journey, doing a thing that few ever expected a child to do. 

So when they camped for the night she was physically exhausted, but also terribly sore. It had been like this when they'd first set out across the desert, before Damcyan, before she'd gotten used to walking all day, but now entirely new muscles were complaining at their mistreatment. And so, once again, she couldn't sleep. This time, she didn't pretend. Strangely, neither did Cecil or Edward; both sat up, facing the fire, thoughtful looks on their faces. 

Edward shook himself out of his daze first, frowning down at Rydia a little when he saw how stiffly she was moving. "Are you in pain, Rydia? Do you need a potion?"

Rydia smiled and shook her head. "No, thank you. It's only the soreness of hard work." She didn't say that she'd tried that, the first night out from Kaipo, and the very next night she'd been just as sore. Cecil had explained that muscles learn to become stronger as they're over-worked, and healing them with magic made them forget. So she'd taken no more potions unless she was really injured, and she'd grown stronger. She had to keep getting stronger, until she could keep up as well as any adult. 

A strange look crossed Edward's face, one that Rydia couldn't quite figure out, but all he said was, "Rubbing the sore muscles can help somewhat. I did that when I first started wandering as a bard."

That seemed as good an opening as any, so Rydia asked, "Why did you start doing that? Is being a Prince not... safer? More comfortable?" Though the only castle she'd seen had been already rubble, Rydia had some idea that living in a castle, that being a noble, was a life full of luxury and ease. 

"I never cared for politics. Music made me happy, and I thought... well, I suppose I thought that I ought to be allowed to be happy. It was a selfish wish, I think now. An excuse for running away from the duty I was born to." Edward looked down at his hands, hiding his face from sight. 

Cecil made a thoughtful noise, then said slowly, "Perhaps it was so. But I think it was no ill thing, to see your kingdom from below as well as from above. To see how _all_ the people you will rule live, and to know the people outside your kingdom." His hand clenched into a fist, his gauntlet clanking faintly with the movement. "It is harder--so much harder--to make war on people whose faces you have seen, whose voices you have heard."

Edward rocked back as though he'd been struck, shock writ large on his face. "I... I had not thought of it so. I thought only of myself, until I met Anna. Perhaps she would have thought of such a thing, in time. She was the wiser of us, and would have..." He covered his face with his hands, and shook his head. "She would have been a truly great Queen, and made me a better King by far."

"She _has_ made you a better King, hasn't she? Just by making you think a little." Rydia kept the acid from her voice, this time. She had little patience for tears, having forced her own to dry, but as long as Edward was moving forward she wanted only to keep him from stopping, not scold him into deeper misery.

And, indeed, Edward straightened up then, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Just so. Just so. Thank you, Rydia, Cecil. You have given me much to consider."

They were all of them quiet for a time, after that, until Edward finally broke the silence again. "Cecil, when you spoke of war, just now..." He trailed off there, visibly losing courage mid-sentence.

"Damcyan's fire crystal was the second one taken, as you may have gathered. I led the Red Wings to Mysidia to take the first. It was impossible for me to see a village of mystics and civilians as an enemy force, and yet I still took from them something that was theirs by right, because my King asked it of me. That I questioned the deed changes not that I did it." Cecil had turned his face so that it was in shadow, but Rydia heard in his voice the sadness that she'd seen only glimpses of, before. "Nor that I followed his next order, even with such doubts already in my mind."

Rydia looked away, too, at that. She'd never quite heard the whole of Cecil's side of what happened next. She'd guessed much, from what he and the dragoon said to each other and from hints that he'd dropped since, but she was not sure what she felt about hearing his full confession.

Cecil noticed her movement, though, and paused. "I will not speak of it if you do not wish it, Rydia."

She thought about it, even as Edward looked on with a puzzled sort of expression on his face. Would it shatter the fragile trust she'd built with Cecil to hear of his crimes again? He'd been branded a traitor by now, surely, for protecting her as he had in Kaipo. Could that sacrifice be enough to stand against what had gone before? Suddenly she wanted to know, once and for all, if it could. "No, speak. I know only the end of the story, and not the beginning. I would know it all."

And so he told them, of being ordered to slay an Eidolon, knowing nothing of them. Of being told to deliver a message without knowing what it was. Of willful ignorance and blind loyalty, broken at last only by fire and death. That he felt intense guilt, Rydia had already known. The depth of his anger and his _hurt_ surprised her more than a little. "You loved him, didn't you? Your King. You loved him."

Cecil gasped, then, and looked at her at last. That his eyes were wet seemed to startle him as much as it did her, and he wiped away the tears so forcefully that his gauntlet left a long bloody scratch along his cheek. "He raised me, gave me a home when I had none. He was my father in every way that counted. But that man, the man that treated an orphan like his own son, would not have asked such things of me." His shoulders straightened, then. "No, indeed. There is something very wrong in Baron of late. I saw it, and ignored it until it was already too far gone."

There was a soft clank, then, as Edward touched Cecil's shoulder, making as though to squeeze it. He drew back an instant later, awkwardly, and his face turned pink. The instinct to offer physical comfort was not wrong, Rydia suspected, but the futility of doing so for someone in full plate armour struck her suddenly as awfully funny. She covered her mouth with both hands, trying to hold in the laughter that was as much hysterical as it was amused. 

Edward gave her an affronted look, which he then turned on Cecil as the dark knight snorted loudly. Fortunately for everyone's dignity, both Rydia and Cecil managed to rein themselves in. Cecil took off his gauntlets and his helmet, then, and gave Edward's shoulder a proper squeeze. "Thank you, my friend." Cecil's pale hair was lank and streaked darker with sweat, his face was still drawn and pale, but Rydia felt sure that the shadow that hung around him was at least a little lighter, now.

And, Rydia found, far from being broken, the trust between her and Cecil was stronger, beginning to feel like a thing that could last for all their lives. Edward, too, felt more like the friend Cecil had named him, rather than the stranger he'd been only yesterday.

"Perhaps we should attempt to sleep, now. Tomorrow we must make haste to claim a Sand Pearl and return it to Kaipo and your lady," Edward suggested, his change of topic not unwelcome to Rydia, as the tension of their weighty discussion began to wear off and leave her entirely wrung out. Cecil, too, looked nearly ready to fall asleep where he sat. 

This time sleep came easily to them all, and for this one night it was deep, and dreamless.


End file.
